Swap It on WhatsApp:The Moral Economy of Informal Online Exchange Networks in Contemporary Cuba

The inhabitants of Cuba's capital, Havana, are using semipublic group chats on messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram to access food, hygiene products, medication, and other basic necessities during times of scarcity. This has been especially prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such chat groups created digital spaces in which locals swap scarce goods and share vital information about the availability of products in the government-run shops, creative entrepreneurs offer online delivery services, and black-market vendors sell commodities that are in short supply. We examine the conflicting value systems that shape the interactions on these messaging apps, where solidarity and sharing as well as market-mediated exchanges come to coexist and must be negotiated on an everyday basis. The article is accompanied by a series of “screen walks”–that is, short mobile phone videos, in which research participants explain the dynamics of the groups they participate in.